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National Mortality Rates: The Impact of Inequality?

Author

Wilkinson, Richard G.

Bibliographic Citation

American Journal of Public Health. 1992 Aug; 82(8): 1082-1084.

Abstract

Although health is closely associated with income differences within
each country there is, at best, only a weak link between national mortality
rates and average income among the developed countries. On the other hand,
there is evidence of a strong relationship between national mortality rates
and the scale of income differences within each society. These three elements
are coherent if health is affected less by changes in absolute material
standards across affluent populations than it is by relative income or the
scale of income differences and the resulting sense of disadvantage within
each society. Rather than socioeconomic mortality differentials representing a
distribution around given national average mortality rates, it is likely that
the degree of income inequality indicates the burden of relative deprivation
on national mortality rates.